Living with an apostrophe can be tricky…

The First Noel (thoughts from a lonely Christmas)

This Christmas it will be just the four of us at home. No traveling, no family visiting. And while we (of course) will miss time with our extended family, we’re more than a little excited to have just the four of us. To form traditions and snuggle and stay in PJs all day. To explore our new city and to serve our neighbors. To make cinnamon rolls and start a new tradition of fish and chips for dinner.

Brandon and I will celebrate twelve years on December 31. And in that 12 years, we have only ever spent 1 Christmas Day with just us, in 2011.

On this particular year, Christmas was on a Sunday. Since we were sticking around, we volunteered to sing the special music at church. We chose The First Noel. And while it wasn’t particularly meaningful to us at the time, it became deeply meaningful to me in the 6 years since.

Why? Well let me back up a little bit.

This was the Christmas before Jamie was born. It had been 5 years since we had first started trying to have our first child. And we were spent. tired. defeated. As we approached that day, we were filled with great longing and sadness. We were exhausted emotionally and my body was exhausted physically.

And one might think (and they would have good reason) that this was the wrong year to choose a quiet Christmas with just the two of us. And it wasn’t our first choice. Brandon’s grandma had passed away earlier that fall and the expense of extra travel meant we didn’t really have the funds (or vacation time) for the Christmas visit. And, if we’re honest, we weren’t emotionally ready for what the Christmas would bring. We missed his grandma and we were grieving her. We were also grieving the four different adoption situations that had looked possible, only to fall through (at various places in the process). We were sad. If we we’re honest, we just couldn’t handle the questions and the pity and all the things.

So we stayed home. We had a quiet and lovely Christmas Eve with my brother and his wife. And then Christmas Day we made plans for it to be just the two of us.

And reflecting on this day, Brandon and I have realized something. This is where our hearts began to heal. On that lonely Christmas we found the hidden beauty of Advent. When you are longing and waiting for something that may or may not come anytime soon, it’s easy to lose hope. And we knew that we could either find God in the midst of where we were or we would crumble under the weight of it. We were too weak to make much of a choice at the time, instead God descended to us. He found us in our overwhelming exhaustion and weakness and He gave us his presence. He soothed our hearts and held our grief so tenderly. And suddenly we began to understand the magic and mystery of that Bethlehem night…The night when God’s people encountered the savior that they probably didn’t think was coming anymore.

He met us. He cradled us. He loved us. We didn’t know at the time, that Jamie was going to be born a few short months later. We didn’t know that God was preparing the answer to our prayers. We didn’t know that a woman sat miles away taking such good care of the baby in her belly. She didn’t know what her future held either. But she made the most selfless and loving choices. I imagine she was scared, but I also like to imagine that she held the same peace that God gave to us. That month of December none of us knew how the story would unfold.

And as I sit here 6 years later with tears in my eyes, now mom of two beautiful children, I just can’t help but thank God for that Christmas. For the tears. For the pain. For the longing and even for the loneliness. For God descending to us and covering us. For giving us a glimpse and a deeper understanding of his coming, of the beauty of the Incarnation…that the Savior of the World would come to the broken and the weak.

And so I leave you with the lyrics of that beautiful hymn.

The first Noel the angel did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay; in fields where they lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

Refrain:Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.

They looked up and saw a star shining in the east, beyond them far; and to the earth it gave great light, and so it continued both day and night.